31 Days of Organizing Tips: Day 24 (Craft Supplies)

Welcome to Day Twenty Four of the 31 Days of Organizing Tips series!  Throughout this series I’m sharing organizing tips that will help you on your journey from overwhelmed to organized.  

Today’s tips are to help you organize your craft supplies. Whether you are lucky enough to have a whole craft room or your craft supplies are stored in a closet or cupboard, they can easily become overwhelming.

Sometimes it’s hard to be creative when you have to spend time looking for something that you can’t find because your craft materials are unorganized. Or, you go out and buy more of something and then find out you already had a bunch stashed away.

Creativity and organization don’t have to be mutually exclusive. By following a few simple organizing tips you can stop feeling overwhelmed. And having all your craft supplies organized can free you up to spend more of your time crafting!

Before you start organizing, purge your supplies (you knew I was going to say that right?!). Do this periodically so you can make better use of what you have. Crafty people tend to see a potential craft in everything and want to keep all kinds of stuff because they plan to make something with it. Be realistic. If you haven’t used something in awhile you probably won’t. If you’re not ready to part with it right away, set it someplace to use within a few weeks or a month and then if you don’t use it for a project you can feel better about letting it go.

Now, here are some tips for organizing the craft supplies you’re keeping:

1.  Make sure you have a place for everything and keep all your supplies in one location, including any tools you typically need. That way you won’t have to spend time gathering things from several places when you’re ready to craft. Check out all the crafting materials organized in this beautiful craft room!  You really need to click the link to see a bunch more pictures (close-ups) of all the jars, bins, baskets, and other storage containers she used.

A Cute Place to Make Stuff

2.  Group like items with each other. This pictures shows how kids’ craft supplies can be organized by grouping materials. She used a variety of different storage methods in this kitchen cupboard, but labeled everything, including the stacking trays. Check out her post for more details on everything she fits into this little space.

Organized Craft Cupboard

3. If you like colours, you can group colours of paper, material, or even beads into containers. That way when you’re working in a particular colour you can easily find what you need.

Organizing a Craft Cupboard

4.  Use containers that allow you to see what you have and that keep items in their place.

Craft Closet

5.  Be creative in finding solutions to store various types of materials. For example, you can store rolls of ribbon, washi tape, and pattered duct tape on rods.

Craft Room

Or you can use a small shelf or a spice rack to display your paint.

Studio

6.  Always put everything back in it’s place.  This is the key to staying organized. And in case you looked at some of those pictures and felt overwhelmed because you don’t have space for a beautiful craft room, let me assure you that IF you are organized, you don’t need to have a large space to store all your materials. A small cabinet or a shelf in a closet will work. Or be creative. For example, I love how this wardrobe was converted into a scrapbooking supplies area!

Scrapbook Armoire

Please remember to pin from the original source for all of these lovely pictures!

Feeling inspired after all those amazing ideas?  Whether you have need to organize supplies for sewing, scrapbooking, or general crafting, these tips can help you work out a solution that will work for you!

For Day Twenty Four, gather and purge your craft supplies and then choose one of these tips and put it into action in your craft area.  There are lots of cheap or DIY organizing ideas so don’t let money hold you back from being organized with your creative supplies!

How do you organize your craft supplies?  What’s the best organizing tip you’ve implemented?

If you need help decluttering or organizing, contact me for in-person organizing services in the Mississauga area, or virtual organizing services anywhere else. 

Happy organizing!